Biography Adolph de Yvon

A muralist, Adolph deYvon completed a giant patriotic allegory mural, later housed in the New York State Education Department in Albany. Titled "The Genius of America," it included a depiction of a barely clothed black man on his knees being lifted up by a white man. The mural was intended as commentary on America's racist past, but in the late 20th century, it became the subject of much controversy because it was thought offensively racist.

Originally, the work was done as a commission for the owner of the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs and was a sprawling tableaux of heroic figures expressing the ideals of America. In 1952, it was donated to the Education Department, and employees there later requested that a curtain be draw
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